Anthony J. Bellia Jr., O’Toole Professor of Constitutional Law at Notre Dame Law School and recipient of the 2015 Law School Distinguished Teaching Award, will address the graduates at Notre Dame Law School’s 2015 Commencement ceremonies on May 16.

A two-day conference begins tomorrow at Notre Dame University London Law Center with more than 25 experts exploring the financing of terrorism and strategies to combat terrorism, with a keen focus on ISIS.

Katie Jo Luningham, 3L, has been named a Burton Distinguished Legal Writing Award Winner, one of the highest national awards for student legal writing. Her paper Resisting Rulemaking: Challenging the Montana Settlement’s Title IX Sexual Harassment Blueprint, was published last year in the Notre Dame Law Review.

The Notre Dame Law School’s Program on Church, State, and Society sponsored an opportunity for four students to travel to Italy over spring break to participate in the Fondazione Studium Generale Marcianum Moot Court Competition on Law and Religion in Venice. The competition brought together law students from the United States and Europe to argue a case on religious accommodation, and examine issues of religious freedom through a comparative lens.

Nine students were awarded public interest summer scholarships from the Women’s Legal Forum, Asian Law Student’s Association, and the Environmental Law Society. Seven scholarships were funded by the Women’s Legal Forum with proceeds from the Fr. Mike Show Feb. 25. Two other scholarships are funded by the Asian Law Student’s Association and the Environmental Law Society. The scholarships will help fund the students’ public interest positions in various cities his summer.

The Law School’s AAJ national team advanced to the final four of the American Association of Justice National Student Trial Advocacy Competition in Pittsburgh this past weekend. In due course, Notre Dame’s Miguel Contreras, Erin Kauffman, Jonathan Mahoney and Adam Zamora defeated the national teams from Belmont, Syracuse, Washington, and Massachusetts before losing a split decision to George Mason. (Stetson University ultimately defeated George Mason to win the competition.)

Mary McAleese, former President of Ireland, will have a conversation with the Notre Dame Law School Community titled The Real "Fighting Irish:” Is Peace Here to Stay? Professor Doug Cassel, former Director of the Center for Civil and Human Rights and Notre Dame Presidential Fellow, will moderate the conversation at 3:30 p.m. Monday, April 13, in the McCartan Courtroom in Eck Hall of Law. A reception will follow at 5:00 p.m. in Eck Commons.

Perhaps no man in recent memory has better embodied the motto inscribed over the door to the Sacred Heart Basilica than Professor Charles E. Rice. A devout Catholic, a Marine, a professor, and a coach, Professor Rice did it all, and always with an abounding sense of humor and purpose. It is therefore with a heavy heart that the Law School announces his passing on February 25, 2015.

NDLS grad Sean Seymore has been named a Chancellor Faculty Fellow by Vanderbilt University.

The appointment extends over two fiscal years and includes additional funding designed to support Professor Seymore’s innovative research into how patent law should evolve in response to scientific advances and how the intersection of law and science should influence the formulation of public policy.

International human rights law scholar Professor Douglass Cassel has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to do research in Mexico on the enforcement of Inter-American human rights law by Mexican courts. The project will begin in the spring semester of 2016.

After four rounds of competition, NDLS students Sarah Gallo and Patrick Duffey (with Jae Kim on the brief) were declared the winners of the National Religious Freedom Moot Court Competition February 7.

Professor Dan Kelly has been elected as one of the 26 new members to The American Law Institute. The American Law Institute is the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize, and improve the law. The ALI…

Richard Garnett, NDLS Professor and Director of the Program on Church, State & Society, has been appointed by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights as one of 18 Indiana citizens to its Indiana Advisory Committee.

Andrea Pin (PhD, University of Turin, Italy) was a fall 2014 Notre Dame Kellogg Institute for International Studies visiting fellow. He is senior lecturer at the University of Padua, where he teaches constitutional law, comparative public law, and Islamic law. His interests include constitutionalism in Middle East as well as on comparative perspectives on religious liberty, constitutional interpretation, and federalism. While at Notre Dame, he was also a visiting professor of European Union law at the Notre Dame Law School.

December saw two Notre Dame Law School grads confirmed to the federal bench. Double Domer Jack Blakey, ’88 B.A., ’92 J.D., was confirmed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois by the U.S. Senate December 16. Earlier this month Jerry Pappert, ’88 J.D., was confirmed to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

This spring Ron Dolin, one of the First 100 at Google and the co-founder of Stanford University’s Program for Legal Technology & Design, teamed up with Jason Boehmig, a 2012 magna cum laude NDLS grad and the president and CEO of the legal technology company Ironclad, Inc., to offer a unique and exciting course on Legal Technology and Informatics.

University of Notre Dame law professors Stephen Smith and Richard Garnett are encouraged that Supreme Court justices seem to endorse arguments they have made in a friend-of-the-court brief in the Yates v. United States case now being heard by the court.

The University of Notre Dame has appointed NDLS Professor A.J. Bellia to serve as the inaugural O’Toole Professor of Constitutional Law. This Endowed Chair is funded by a significant gift from Judge Thomas W. and Elaine S. O’Toole to support the study and teaching of constitutional law at Notre Dame Law School. Judge O’Toole, who obtained his B.A. from Notre Dame and his L.L.B. from the University of Arizona, long served with distinction on the Maricopa County Superior Court.

The University honored NDLS Professor Jay Tidmarsh as a 2014 Featured Faculty during the third quarter of the North Carolina football game October 11. He was recognized during the second half of the game in an on-field ceremony at Notre Dame Stadium and invited to enjoy the third quarter from the Notre Dame sideline.

The Law School is launching a Notre Dame Law in D.C. externship program for Spring 2015 and Spring 2016, Dean Nell Jessup Newton has announced.

Janet Laybold, Assistant Dean for Graduate and Strategic Initiatives, will direct the program and teach its externship seminar. Dean Laybold will work closely with Professor Bob Jones, the Associate Dean for Experiential Programs who launched and continues to run the successful Notre Dame Law in Chicago program.